It isn’t BPD if there was trauma there too. (TW- certain things described in the link may be triggering)

This article explains, better than I ever could, about why so many people who endure child sexual abuse (or adult) and then get labelled obstructive, bitter, attention-seeking or violent as a result. I am so pleased it’s not just me that thinks this attitude is wrong. All the other diagnoses this woman received damaged her too, but my theory on the BPD diagnosis being slapped on traumatised people just blames them seems to be supported here.

Please, seek a different diagnosis if there was trauma in your past and you have been labelled with something that doesn’t fit. PTSD is probably what it is- a healable brain injury which was NOT your fault. NO abuse is ever your fault.

Struggling through these dark times but dealing with it better now that I’m resting. So much support through various people commenting and liking my posts, and following me, not to mention all the love I’m receiving from my friends. Keep fighting all, I’m trying my best. I’ll try and post again with what’s been happening as soon as I can.

8 comments on “It isn’t BPD if there was trauma there too. (TW- certain things described in the link may be triggering)”

Before I write out my comment I feel the need to say I have not read the whole article you link to…yet. I’m not even sure I will. I’d like to but it’s a tough read.

I found myself getting really really frustrated with the mother. At one point her daughter found real help and treatment that was working. The daughter was off most meds except an anti-depressant and her daughter began showing real progress.

Then because THAT particular group disbanded she allowed her daughter to fall back in to the same types of hospitals to find the same kind of sh!t*y shrinks and heavy medications she already knew from past experience didn’t work in the first place???? I have to say WTF???

Sorry and I understand the frustration for the system. It’s definitely effed up. But the mom KNEW the original way didn’t work, yet allowed her daughter to re enter that same crap without continuing to look for someone else that could help? She just gave up because one group of helpful souls disbanded? From a place where abuse was happening anyway.

I don’t know, seems mom was willing to only go so far before throwing her back to the wolves again. I’m confused as to why she didn’t do more.

What happened here a clear example of insanity and I’m not being derogatory about the daughter’s illness. The mom is writing about the system and how messed up it is, how her daughter became invisible in it. But it looks to me that mama bear dropped the ball too.

It doesn’t seem she was enough of advocate for her daughter after a certain point. Now she’s writing an article to advocate for improvements in the system…which is admirable. But sometimes we have to stop depending on the system to change and take the responsibility to find another way for ourselves… take care of our own. There is too much depending on a system which is plain to see by the condition of this planet where that has gotten us.

I know the whole story can’t possibly be in that article, but I still have to ask, where the heck was mom when her daughter was hanging herself?

You remind me of what was said a couple of days ago to me about my own mother. She’s basically burying her head in the sand about my PTSD and as such, had her mind shut to my suffering for so long. Now it seems to me in this case that you’re right about the mother, and whether or not she was deliberately blind to her daughter’s suffering or not, I can’t tell. But I suspect that she was too scared to face the truth and she buried her head, just like my mum does, and by the time she was truly aware of the horrors her daughter was experiencing, it was far too late. I agree with you- where was she when her daughter managed to hang herself with her own t shirt? x

Actually, what is called BPD – if it is even a valid diagnosis, which is quite questionable – is frequently associated with trauma, and could certainly be said to be influenced by traumatic experiences in many cases. Any Google search of BPD and trauma will reveal studies about that.

And BPD is healable and curable, just like PTSD is, with enough time and support. People with BPD do not have a broken brain, nor has the origin of their problem been proven to be biological, genetic or innate.

See I read your comment and loved it only a few words in. THIS is what psychiatry needs to see! I don’t believe BPD should be a valid diagnosis because too often it’s there with trauma, and surely if the trauma caused BPD then it isn’t BPD at all, it’s CPTSD? No wonder so many people give up when they have BPD diagnosis handed to them.
If something is classed as a personality disorder, it has to be ingrained since birth, and unless a person was abused since birth it can’t be a personality disorder. Anyway, I think if psychiatrists were a little more open to understanding the horrors of abuse, the BPD label would die the death.
(Also: I read the title of your blog and loved it. You rock.)

Thanks for your comment. The state of psychiatry today is truly tragic… it makes me think of the famous literary quote, “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Complex PTSD would be a better name for what are truly emotional developmental arrests at a young (emotional) age that get given the meaningless label “borderline”. But of course we wouldn’t want people to know the truth would we, because then psychiatrists would lose their illusory special status and drug companies would lose income. Forgive my cynicism.